Beware an offer from left field!
Domain Renewals
Busy people can sometimes be too efficient and fire off a proforma invoice to their accounts people for payment. Proforma invoicing isn't new of course, it's a scam that's been around for years. The scammer sends an invoice covering goods or services that were never ordered and if payment is made they may or may not deliver the goods.
Proforma invoices have been commonly used in the print advertising field and in recent years they have moved online to bill for internet services. This example isn't a proforma in our opinion, just a close cousin. We have no idea if the registrar services being billed will actually be supplied if the invoice is paid but given that the invoicing company's services were never requested, it isn't looking good.
In fairness, if you read the material thoroughly (and you always do, right?) the position is correctly described. However, this outfit has been doing this for some years and we have had a client tell us they felt they should pay as "it looks pretty official".
Want know more about registering a domain? Read more...
A similar cautionary tale appeared on 17 March 2010 edition of Martin Avis's "Kickstart" newsletter :-
This is a warning for British domain owners.
A couple of my domains are due for renewal. I have all my domains
with GoDaddy, so renewal is either automatic or, if I've set it
to manual, GoDaddy will send me plenty of reminder emails.
Last week, two very official-looking envelopes arrived in the
mail. On opening them, they appeared to be from an official
organization telling me that my domains were about to expire and
that to renew them I had to fill in the form provided and send
them £60 (pounds) for each domain to ensure that I didn't lose
them.
Even at the crazy exchange rate we are currently using, that's
$US90 per domain per year.
Now I'm not stupid, and I recognized the letters as a total scam
right off the bat. But I wonder how many less experienced people
they con in this way?
I guess that what they are doing is legal because there is enough
small print to cover their backsides, but legal or not, it is
scummy, scammy and utterly immoral.
All I can say is - if you ever get a letter out of the blue that
tells you to send money to renew a domain registration, DON'T.
Only renew with the domain registrar you bought from in the first
place and never for more than about $US10 per year.
There are some real creeps out there. Mind they don't part you
from your hard-earned.
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